SHORT of Elvis returning from the dark side of the Moon in a spangled jumpsuit, no comeback could have been more surprising than Kate Bush announcing a string of London concerts this summer.

The notoriously stage-averse singer has not appeared in concert since 1979, a year after she shot to fame with her debut single Wuthering Heights.

In a neat twist, Kate’s 15-show run, beginning on August 26 and continuing until mid-September, will take place at Hammersmith Apollo, the scene of her last concert on May 14, 1979.

Back then she was a 20-year-old touring her second album, Lionheart. Now she is 55 and regarded as one of the most unique, influential and mysterious artists of the past half-century.

There is no simple explanation for Kate’s 35-year absence from the stage. She was a gifted performer. Music paper Melody Maker called 1979’s Tour Of Life a “magnificent spectacle”, combining new technology (she was the first artist to wear a head-set microphone) with dazzling theatricality: two dancers, 17 costume changes, mime, poetry, illusions, magic and video projection.

She enjoyed the shows but they left her physically exhausted and mentally drained, while she discovered that the unpredictable nature of concerts clashed with a desire to maintain control.

This was particularly true in the Seventies, when technology remained relatively rudimentary. She will presumably be in much safer hands in 2014.

The studio rather than the stage quickly became Kate’s preferred creative environment but her reluctance to perform was part of a wider concern about being observed and objectified.

“There is a figure that is adored,” she said, “but I would question very strongly that it is me.”

Her former producer Jon Kelly told me: “People confuse the strangeness of her songs with the way she lives her life but in person she is very down to earth.

The star has not performed in concert since 1979 [PA]

People confuse the strangeness of her songs with the way she lives her life but in person she is very down to earth

Jon Kelly, Kate Bush's former producer

“She came into the studio one day and decided there were two Kate Bushes. She had managed to separate the artist presented to the public and the one she took home.”

That distinction may have been less clear for many fans and critics who watched her assume a series of dramatic and often provocative personas.

As her fame peaked following the enormous success of her 1985 album Hounds of Love, Kate gradually retreated from public life. Distressed by the death of her mother and her split from long- term partner Del Palmer, between the release of The Red Shoes in 1993 and her return in 2005 with Aerial she practically vanished.

She left London and settled in Berkshire and Devon with a new partner, guitarist Danny McIntosh, with whom she had a son, Bertie, in 1998.

Such was the extent of her seclusion, news of Bertie’s birth did not surface for two years. Described as a “ferocious mother” by the late Bob Mercer, the man who first signed her to EMI, Kate’s extended career hiatus and nonexistent public profile allowed her to give her son a normal upbringing outside the orbit of celebrity.

It is no surprise that having chosen to return to public performance she has done so not with a conventional tour but with a residency, which enables her to play 15 shows a mere hour from her current home in Oxfordshire.

“My family life is incredibly important to me and it comes first,” she said in 2011. “My work fits in around it.”

Setting up camp in the West London venue means she can perform without having to uproot her life, or contend with the travel demands and alienating routines of a full tour.

The question is: why now? At 55, Kate may well have concluded that it is now or never but for all the talk of reclusiveness, there have been recent hints at a higher profile. Since 2011 she has released two albums: Director’s Cut, on which she reinterpreted 11 old songs, and 50 Words for Snow.

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In 2012 she also recorded a new version of her 1985 classic Running up that Hill for the Olympic closing ceremony. Kate breaks cover slightly more frequently these days, too. She turned up to receive a South Bank Sky Arts award in 2012 and was at Buckingham Palace last year to collect her CBE from the Queen. Perhaps most significantly, at 15, Bertie presumably now requires a less hands-on raising.

Whatever the reasons there will be enormous levels of anticipation when she steps back on to the Apollo stage on August 26. The pressure will be vast and she will understandably be nervous. One friend recalled watching Kate on the set of her 1993 short film, The Line, The Cross and The Curve, and seeing her legs shaking violently beneath the piano.

As for what we can expect, Kate has so far been typically tightlipped over the nature of the show, titled Before the Dawn, or whether there will be a new record to coincide.

Her recent albums have included cameos from Sir Elton John, Mica Paris and Stephen Fry, so perhaps members of that unlikely trio will be called into service at the Apollo. It is also plausible that her friend Peter Gabriel will revisit their 1986 duet Don’t Give Up. Kate’s reputation (not to mention the ticket prices, which range from £49 to £135) will generate expectations of a theatrical show with high-end production. Given that she is no longer the 20-year-old prodigy who tumbled her way through the Tour of Life, it seems unlikely that the concerts will be overtly physical. More plausible is that her long-standing interest in film and video will be much in evidence.

After 35 years Kate’s fans would be more than happy for her to simply sit and sing at the piano on an otherwise empty stage. We will have to see what she has in store. As Friday’s announcement proved, Kate still has the power to shock and surprise.

Whatever occurs Before the Dawn, the fact that these shows are happening at all means they are already extraordinary.

Graeme Thomson is the author of Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush